Totally NOT a debate about the veracity of the gospels

[SteelCurtain]

I have had borderline violent arguments about whether a deep crimson is red or purple. I say it's red, my friends Craig and Mike say it's purple. Large citrus has been thrown, litigation threatened.

[Minimalist]

So multiple translation of Mark 15:17 cite "purple"

New International Version
They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him.

New Living Translation
They dressed him in a purple robe, and they wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head.

English Standard Version
And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him.

New American Standard Bible
They dressed Him up in purple, and after twisting a crown of thorns, they put it on Him;

King James Bible
And they clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head,

Holman Christian Standard Bible
They dressed Him in a purple robe, twisted together a crown of thorns, and put it on Him.

International Standard Version
They dressed him in a purple robe, twisted some thorns into a victor's crown, and placed it on his head.

NET Bible
They put a purple cloak on him and after braiding a crown of thorns, they put it on him.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
And they clothed him in purple and they wound and placed on him a crown of thorns.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
They dressed him in purple, twisted some thorns into a crown, and placed it on his head.

Jubilee Bible 2000
And they clothed him with purple and platted a crown of thorns and put it about his head

King James 2000 Bible
And they clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head,

American King James Version
And they clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head,

American Standard Version
And they clothe him with purple, and platting a crown of thorns, they put it on him;

Douay-Rheims Bible
And they clothe him with purple, and platting a crown of thorns, they put it upon him.

Darby Bible Translation
And they clothe him with purple, and bind round on him a crown of thorns which they had plaited.

English Revised Version
And they clothe him with purple, and plaiting a crown of thorns, they put it on him;

Webster's Bible Translation
And they clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head,

Weymouth New Testament
they arrayed Him in crimson, placed on His head a wreath of thorny twigs which they had twisted,

World English Bible
They clothed him with purple, and weaving a crown of thorns, they put it on him.

Young's Literal Translation
and clothe him with purple, and having plaited a crown of thorns, they put it on him,

and multp;e translation of Matty 27:28 call it scarlet..or crimson.

Parallel Verses
New International Version
They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him,

New Living Translation
They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him.

English Standard Version
And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him,

New American Standard Bible
They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him.

King James Bible
And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
They stripped Him and dressed Him in a scarlet military robe.

International Standard Version
They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him.

NET Bible
They stripped him and put a scarlet robe around him,

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
And they stripped him and they clothed him with a scarlet robe.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
They took off his clothes and put a bright red cape on him.

Jubilee Bible 2000
And they stripped him and put on him a scarlet robe.

King James 2000 Bible
And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe.

American King James Version
And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe.

American Standard Version
And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And stripping him, they put a scarlet cloak about him.

Darby Bible Translation
and having taken off his garment, put on him a scarlet cloak;

English Revised Version
And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe.

Webster's Bible Translation
And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe.

Weymouth New Testament
Stripping off His garments, they put on Him a general's short crimson cloak.

World English Bible
They stripped him, and put a scarlet robe on him.

Young's Literal Translation
and having unclothed him, they put around him a crimson cloak,

These are different colors which is what Jake said. Frankly, considering some of the other blatant fuck-ups in your silly-assed bible I consider this one minimal but it exists, just as he said it did.

P.S. - purple, as noted somewhere, was very expensive dye and was reserved for the emperor. Do you really think a common soldier would risk insulting the emperor for some insignificant jew who was about to be dead? Get your head out of your ass, huh.

[discipulus]

I confess that I am the worst at distinguishing colors. I could not even tell you what color these borders are on this website.

When I was younger they gave me the multi-colored dot with the number in the middle test and I was like......

Am I supposed to see something besides a bunch of dots???

I could never see the numbers. It is called having a "color deficiency". Most people incorrectly label it as color blindness. I can see colors, I just have a hard time distinguishing certain shades of blue, purple and red.

[Angrboda]

As Requested


Ok, here's my problem. This is what clinched it for me.

Red is not purple.

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Matthew says that the soldiers “put a scarlet robe” on Jesus (27:27-28), Mark says that “they clothed Him with purple ” (15:16-17), and John states that the soldiers put “a purple robe” on Him (19:1-2)

I've heard any number of takes on this and none of them are convincing.

Matthew could have been colourblind. Fine, but that means the human limitations of the authors have to be allowed for. Which means someone else might have written something wrong because of perspective.

It could be that one has to COMBINE the gospels to get to the truth. In which case we have a bible which all together leaves us a robe 2/3rds of the way between purple and red. Which is a different colour which is NOT RED AND NOT PURPLE. Read any one gospel and its wrong.

Or we could go down the route that it was a FADED red robe which was starting to look purple. In which case it wasn't red any more.

Some people have it that the romans used the same word for red AND purple. Bully for them. We don't. Red is not purple. Purple is not red.

I've read (ha) a few other explanations but fundamentally it boils down very simply. Red and purple are different. Thus if it was one thing, it was not the other thing. And if it was a THIRD thing (purply red or reddish purple) then it was NEITHER red nor purple.

That's it. Red is not purple.

---

The Greek language even contained a specific name for a garment that was purple. The word is "porphýra" – purple, symbolic of "royal status" (L & N, 1, 79.38). There were three familiar shades of purple in the ancient world: deep violet, deep scarlet (or crimson), and deep blue (WP, 2, 220).

So to recap, Matthew describes Jesus' robe as a "scarlet" robe and only speaks of the robe specifically using this term one time in his gospel while both Mark and John use the word "purple" a total of four times. Also, do not forget, the author of the Book of Revelation uses both words in conjunction two times to denote power and honor. Also bear in mind that in the ancient world, there were several shades of purple. A deep violet which would be considered the purest and most valuable dye used in the process of coloring clothing and would be reserved for those elite of Roman society, you then had a deep scarlet shade of purple which was usually reserved for Military commanders and officers. The robe in question was no doubt one such robe and had probably been worn and faded due to exposure to the sun. Hence the Romans did not mind wrapping it around the body of a bloody Jewish man. This robe when new would rightly have been referred to as a "scarlet" robe even though after use and exposure to the sun the robe would fade and appear purplish in color especially when under certain lighting conditions not unlike clothes we see today that were once a very rich and vibrant color appearing after much use to be faded and "lighter".

This is so ad hoc as to not be worth taking seriously. It's one of those "it could have happened" stories that apologists are so fond of. And Jesus "could have been" a man eating dinosaur. Out of nothing you dredge up that the color of soldiers robes, under certain conditions which are nowhere specified in the text, might have looked such that it could equally well be described as two different colors. And nowhere do you justify that all three ancient shades were used in royal or imperial cloaks. While we're at it, why don't we just "insert into the text" that Noah was the owner of a galactic hyper-ship building company he won in a poker game from a space-faring alien. It coulda happened.

[discipulus]

These are different colors which is what Jake said. Frankly, considering some of the other blatant fuck-ups in your silly-assed bible I consider this one minimal but it exists, just as he said it did.

P.S. - purple, as noted somewhere, was very expensive dye and was reserved for the emperor. Do you really think a common soldier would risk insulting the emperor for some insignificant jew who was about to be dead? Get your head out of your ass, huh.

I do not think you read what I wrote.

Matthew uses the Greek word for scarlet. It does not say light scarlet or dark scarlet. Mark and John use the Greek word for purple. They do not say light purple or dark purple.

If one had said the robe was white and the other had said it was black, then we would have a problem no doubt.

But it is a simple fact that certain shades of scarlet and certain shades of purple look the same. So calling an item that was more than likely worn and faded purple and calling the same article scarlet when no doubt the robe when new would have been more of a darker red color is not the same as calling the article black and then calling them same article white.

If you and I were asked to give our view of what a certain article of clothing was and it fell into this particular range of colors, we probably would not agree.

So why are you all excited about any of this?

---

The Greek language even contained a specific name for a garment that was purple. The word is "porphýra" – purple, symbolic of "royal status" (L & N, 1, 79.38). There were three familiar shades of purple in the ancient world: deep violet, deep scarlet (or crimson), and deep blue (WP, 2, 220).

So to recap, Matthew describes Jesus' robe as a "scarlet" robe and only speaks of the robe specifically using this term one time in his gospel while both Mark and John use the word "purple" a total of four times. Also, do not forget, the author of the Book of Revelation uses both words in conjunction two times to denote power and honor. Also bear in mind that in the ancient world, there were several shades of purple. A deep violet which would be considered the purest and most valuable dye used in the process of coloring clothing and would be reserved for those elite of Roman society, you then had a deep scarlet shade of purple which was usually reserved for Military commanders and officers. The robe in question was no doubt one such robe and had probably been worn and faded due to exposure to the sun. Hence the Romans did not mind wrapping it around the body of a bloody Jewish man. This robe when new would rightly have been referred to as a "scarlet" robe even though after use and exposure to the sun the robe would fade and appear purplish in color especially when under certain lighting conditions not unlike clothes we see today that were once a very rich and vibrant color appearing after much use to be faded and "lighter".

This is so ad hoc as to not be worth taking seriously. It's one of those "it could have happened" stories that apologists are so fond of. And Jesus "could have been" a man eating dinosaur. Out of nothing you dredge up that the color of soldiers robes, under certain conditions which are nowhere specified in the text, might have looked such that it could equally well be described as two different colors. And nowhere do you justify that all three ancient shades were used in royal or imperial cloaks. While we're at it, why don't we just "insert into the text" that Noah was the owner of a galactic hyper-ship building company he won in a poker game from a space-faring alien. It coulda happened.

Certain shades of certain colors look similar to if not identical to other shades of other colors, and this is irrespective of varying lighting conditions.

You act like this is something I am making up lol!

[Angrboda]

This is so ad hoc as to not be worth taking seriously. It's one of those "it could have happened" stories that apologists are so fond of. And Jesus "could have been" a man eating dinosaur. Out of nothing you dredge up that the color of soldiers robes, under certain conditions which are nowhere specified in the text, might have looked such that it could equally well be described as two different colors. And nowhere do you justify that all three ancient shades were used in royal or imperial cloaks. While we're at it, why don't we just "insert into the text" that Noah was the owner of a galactic hyper-ship building company he won in a poker game from a space-faring alien. It coulda happened.

Certain shades of certain colors look similar to if not identical to other shades of other colors, and this is irrespective of varying lighting conditions.

Does God mistake one color for another?

[*Deidre*]

There was no robe. There was no story. That's the point (I think?) Jacob is trying to make. It's a fictional story, which is why the 'colors of the robe' ...change. Has nothing to do with Greek translations, or anything else. I find it hilarious that Christians take a fictional tale, and add all this 'scholarly sounding' bullshit to it, to make it 'appear' like a true story. Well, if we translate it in Greek it means....this.

It's a bullshit story in any language.

Jesus, a Jewish hippie who despised organized religion and came to tell people a better way to live...MAY have existed 2000+ years ago. The end.

[discipulus]

Certain shades of certain colors look similar to if not identical to other shades of other colors, and this is irrespective of varying lighting conditions.

Does God mistake one color for another?

No, neither did the gospel writers make a "mistake." They wrote what they wrote for a reason.

The fact is, in ancient times, the dye used to dye clothes was not the same thing we use today.

Also bear in mind, in ancient times people did not think it was a crime against humanity to use the words scarlet and purple interchangeably.

hock:

[Angrboda]

Does God mistake one color for another?

No, neither did the gospel writers make a "mistake." They wrote what they wrote for a reason.

Is this the word of God, or the fallible words of men?

[discipulus]

There was no robe. There was no story. That's the point (I think?) Jacob is trying to make. It's a fictional story, which is why the 'colors of the robe' ...change. Has nothing to do with Greek translations, or anything else. I find it hilarious that Christians take a fictional tale, and add all this 'scholarly sounding' bullshit to it, to make it 'appear' like a true story. Well, if we translate it in Greek it means....this.

It's a bullshit story in any language.

So you say....

But I cannot help but wonder, if it is all just bull as you say, why are you so interested in it?

What you are doing is akin to me spending time in a forum arguing and debating with people and asking them questions about gnomes and leprechauns.

If it is all bull, as you claim, why are you so interested in asking people about bull?

You must like it an awful lot, or either be incredibly bored.

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No, neither did the gospel writers make a "mistake." They wrote what they wrote for a reason.

Is this the word of God, or the fallible words of men?

Judge for yourself, for it will be you and you alone who will bear the burden of accepting or rejecting the content of the Bible.

If you judge it to be rubbish then fine. Judge it and move on. Many who have come before you have done just that. Many there will be who will come after you who will do the same.